Hardball just kicking a CAN around

Hardball wishes to enjoy a word game today using the abbreviation CAN. You CANnot feign ignorance of the full meaning of CAN if you are a Nigerian adult because there is only one CAN in the CANonical landscape of Nigeria today. And this CAN has been CANned or if you are morbid-minded, you may say that it has been CANnibalised and left in an unholy muck for some time now. CAN is in the thrashCAN!

It is rather unCANny that we all have had to put up with this CANt for so long. To be CANdid, CAN has been commonised like a CANteen; those roadside bukas where anything goes. It is indeed a CANker, a CANdle in the wind. There is no doubt that the CAN hierarchy are not CANoodling themselves over this CAQNine distemper of a situation. Their faces must be heavy now and their cassocks seemingly moldy; their shoulders droop as if they bear the heavy burden of an imaginary CANgue. Yes, the yoke, the portable pillory carried by minor offenders in ancient China. That is the unspoken burden of CAN today, her CANe, her cup and her cross.

One of the most respected influence groups in Nigeria, CAN has become like an expired CANnister – used, abused and discarded by some people possessed of what may be described as CANnite appetite. CAN CANnot sing CANtatas anymore; it must have lost its CANorous voice in a land rendered even more arid today by interlopers, wannabes and popinjays. Where once sweet alleluyahs would rise to the heavens morning, noon and night it is now silence; the overbeariQng silence of money chasers making music with currency counting machines. CAN sleeps under the dark CANopy of currencies, shielding itself from the lights of heaven.

CAN’s sound of music has become sound of money. Money-mongering is the high gospel of the day, the CANonisation of cash. Cash must be king for CAN now or is it still Christ? The terrestrial choir has sung itself hoarse in praise worship of the majesty of Marmon. It is a wide-eyed pursuit – the more you have, the more you crave. Their choirs have lost their voices as they now chant inCANtations to their new-found gods sitting on suitcases of crisp dollar notes. Their faith need not move mountains anymore; why disturb the mountains if you can jet over them?

Who will redeem CAN from being flushed into the odious CANal of wantonness? Alas, no CANdelabras burn for CAN anymore in this parched land. It is indeed a CANdidate for annulment. It CANnot in good conscience continue to demand our respect; CAN is today at the nadir of its existence, roiled in this CANyon of its life.

Sprawled on this CANvas of shame, who will save CAN? The CANnon-ball is on the roll; where are the men of CANdour? In this inCANdescent time, no CANapes are served here anymore because there is sawdust in our mouth. Yes, we chew the long bitterCANe of our forgotten sin wearing sullied cassocks. Ah, we puff the long, dried CANnabis of our current sin; we relish the sugarCANdy of our wayward days when we couldn’t speak truth to power. And we have become the CANdida of this moldy age. Our CANdle flutters in the wind; we drop a tear for CAN.